The Strigoi Chronicles Box Set

by Nya

  If forced to label the politics of the demon world, the best description was feudal, with rights and obligations farmed out according to blood ties and appeasing whatever ego had been bruised or was about to be sullied in some creative fashion. Mortality sucked lemons when it devolved into finding ways to occupy one’s time with little entertainments and mischief because the Head Honcho decried assimilation as the prime directive, thereby removing the convenience of harassing humans and the supers living topside.

  The demon, Eduardo, had been close enough to monitor Dad’s modernization initiatives yet far enough out of sight and out of mind not to trip alarms when things started going south in Demon Central.

  Rafe offered the summary we should have seen weeks, even months ago. “Eduardo’s our mole.” We all shrugged, since that wasn’t exactly a surprise. “He’s also the arms connection with Latin America and the cartels in Level Seven. But I don’t think he engineered the original heist.”

  I raised my eyebrows at that one because the demon had rocketed to the top of everyone’s favorite pirate at that point. So I asked, “Why not?”

  Ticking off points, Rafe explained, “The Soviets left caches all over Eastern Europe, especially in Ukraine where oversight simply doesn’t exist. The human Mafiya is perfectly capable of carrying out dim-witted operations that amount to nothing more than easy pickings.” I was about to object about that ‘easy’ part, but Rafe snorted and said, “After all, they stuffed a tactical nuke inside a coffin with a vamp in stasis, then managed to lose their entire shipment to Somalian pirates and finally had the lot end up with a pack of rogue werewolves.” He poured us all another round and took his glass to the settee, sat down and crossed right leg over left, wearing a Cheshire Cat smile that made my teeth hurt.

  Pops joined his medic on the couch and stretched his long legs under the glass coffee table. He nodded for Rafe to continue.

  The demon looked at me and asked, “Do you remember anything at all about what happened?”

  “Not really, I was in stasis,” and that particular state gave new meaning to the term ‘dead to the world.’ Chewing my lower lip, I thought back to an event that was fuzzy at best and tried to reconstruct what I knew. “I must have come to when I was on the ship because I heard the pirates talking about whatever was in the crates, but then I slipped back into stasis. The next thing I knew, I was in the dacha controlled by Elliot’s pack.” I swallowed the rest of the bourbon and said, half apologetically, “The rest you know, more or less.”

  Jef asked, “Did they mention you or the nuke at all? The pirates.”

  “No, not at that point. But like I said, I was mostly out of it.”

  Pops took over the discussion, pulling together what we knew, what we guessed and what we couldn’t ever know for certain. He peeled away all the extraneous crap and misdirections and settled, in his own mind, on an explanation that made sense.

  “We’ll never know for sure, but I suspect somebody took a photo of you, probably when they were loading the nuke in your casket. It’s likely they used the internet to share that, either with their compatriots or just because they are morons. In any case, somebody saw the resemblance and decided to investigate further.”

  Rafe huffed, “Eduardo.”

  Pops shrugged but obviously agreed. He continued, “I thought at first that Eduardo would be interested because Dreu’s my son. That alone offered many possibilities for fucking with the rights of succession and throwing a monkey wrench into my plans to expand our influence topside.”

  Jef wondered, “How the hell do the wolves factor in?”

  Rafe answered before Pops could jump in, “That’s a good question. What I think is that they stumbled on the cache and didn’t know what they had until Eduardo made contact with them.”

  I piped up, “He’d have gone to Samuels. Elliot was two bricks shy of a load, a total psychopath and not to be trusted.”

  Rafe nodded agreement but then voiced the question that had been bothering me from the beginning. “How the hell did they come to the conclusion that,” and he swiveled to glare at me, “that you were some weapon of mass destruction when they already had a perfectly serviceable nuke in their possession?”

  Pops shifted in his seat, the slight movement capturing our undivided attention. He looked uncomfortable but it was time for full disclosure. As was his way, he came at it sideways.

  “Dreu and I were visiting Paulo’s operations on Level Five. Eduardo joined us for a time, then went off to confer with one of the programmers.” He looked at Jef and explained for his benefit, “Eduardo specialized in supply chain operations, using his arms business as the process model. There was nothing unusual about him being there that day.”

  Since it was long past time for me to own what I’d done, I said, “We got into an argument,” and I nodded toward my sire, “…a fight. I, uh, sort of lost my temper.” Michel du Velours made a sound low in his throat but I ignored him. “It wasn’t the first time it happened.”

  Rafe interrupted with, “Would you care to explain what the hell you’re talking about?”

  Striding to the window, I looked out over the darkening expanse of sea and locked my hands behind my back.

  “You have to understand. I thought I’d been kidnapped, that the demon thing was a monumental joke, until … until he explained my true legacy and what it meant.”

  The Glocks sat heavy at my sides and sweat beaded my brow. That man, that monk, had been churlish and childish, unwilling to listen to anything but his own inconvenience. I laid it out for them, chapter and verse, not proud of who and what I’d been, not making excuses, just stating the facts.

  “The first time was an accident. I honestly had no clue what I’d done. Then it happened more frequently, every time I lost control, my temper, pain… It was never just one thing so I couldn’t pin it down, couldn’t stop it.”

  Those triggers, the ones I’d convinced myself rested outside of conscious control, had resulted in death, dealt out one pique at a time. I shivered at that remembrance.

  My father came to stand by me, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  My voice pensive, the sorrow almost more than I could bear, I said, “I wanted to kill him, I wanted it so much that…” and bent my head, unable to continue.

  My father finished for me. “We lost the entire facility, the minions, the supervisors, over five thousand of our people.”

  Jef wanted to know, “And where was Eduardo?”

  “In the computer center, housed in a secure bunker in another building. Since it was a research facility, it wasn’t that difficult to cover it up. But Eduardo wasn’t fooled. He took that knowledge back with him and found a way to work it to his advantage.”

  Jef said, “So that’s why the wolves were tasked with retrieval.”

  I nodded agreement, my voice going tight. “They almost succeeded. They needed to remove Fane from the mix and isolate me. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, well… We wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”

  Rafe then finished what he had started, including answering the burning question: how the hell Evaline du Languedoc factored into this internecine war. “We have it on good authority that Evaline and Eduardo are lovers. That explains the Catalan connection and her family’s ongoing interest in the arms trade. One hand washing the other, as they say.”

  Michel du Velours straightened his shoulders and checked his Vacheron Constantin timepiece, announcing, “It’s time, let’s get a move on. We don’t want to be late to the hanging.”

  Rafe grumbled about half-assed ideas but held his cell to his ear and ordered the armored Mercedes brought to the courtyard.

  Rafe accompanied us to the vehicle but before we opened the doors, he floored us with a simple observation.

  “This isn’t going to work, sire.”

  Our liege lord placed his palms on the hood of the vehicle and said, “Pray tell, why not.”

  “Because she’s your wife. And you’re still in love with
her."

  Chapter Ten

  Banyuls-sur-Mer lay at the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees massif, in a U-shaped alcove along the Mediterranean, surrounded by vineyards and bordering Spain. As usual, Rafe had provided a complete dossier on the town: the geography, its history of smuggling goods across the border to Espagne, and its current status as a tourist mecca.

  As the region of my birth I should have had at least a vague memory of it, but in truth Maman had fled to Dijon when I was but un enfant, ostracized by her family’s shame at their daughter having birthed the impossible, a genetic freak. I wondered what they would think of the fruit of her womb now, demon-sized and demonized until that part of me that was Vampyr ached like a severed limb. With the passage of time, the only markers left would be a too pale complexion and a few enhanced senses.

  Jefrumael drove, his eyes flicking in the rearview mirror, watching me. Michel du Velours sat in the front seat staring at nothing, the night black as pitch, the blankness of open water off to our left and, to the right, the occasional flickers of lights from hamlets or isolated houses that filled in the base of the mountains with terraced vineyards.

  The strange disconnect as Jef punctured the boundaries between topside and the first level of Hel left me queasy as usual, though the effect seemed less each time we made a traverse. Rafe wanted us to approach from the south and had mapped a route, using shortcuts through the steep mountain barrier, easing our passage onto the few level stretches, until we came within a couple klicks of Aveline’s fortified retreat, at which point we tested the Mercedes’ torque on the steep grades.

  Jef’s lead foot got us the rally point on an overlook where the Demon King’s Guard mustered briefly, then dispensed like ghosts, filtering through the boundary until all that remained was the SUV parked precariously on a pull-off and us three making our way down a narrow, paved footpath to approach the bunker from the rear.

  At a gated entrance, one of Aveline’s werewolves met us with a nod of recognition and a flick of his M-16. I spread my jacket, indicating there was hardware, Pops did the same. Then we turned and watched with amusement as our blond assassin catalogued a third world country’s stash of small arms strapped to his body, pivoting for the edification of whoever manned the security camera.

  As we passed through the gate, I whispered, “You forgot to show them what’s strapped to your dick.”

  He winked and said, “I was saving that for later. As a surprise.”

  Our tactician-slash-medic figured it was better to go in armed to the teeth, make a good show of faith by voluntarily removing the weapons, and thus lulling the opposition into thinking they’d gotten everything and needn’t worry overmuch about surprises.

  Personally, I didn’t see the point to the gamesmanship because we were in a nest of vipers, buck naked, metaphorically speaking, and if they wanted to exercise a little Vampyr display of temper, there really wasn’t much we were going to do about it, armed or not.

  And in the back of my mind, filed under arcane things to worry about because Father Dreu was addicted to popular television, the fact that the flag officers—the Admiral, his second-in-command, and the comic relief—formed an away team in a situation heavily weighted in favor of not us, ought to have set off alarm bells. But the fact was, in a game of let’s make a deal, I was the potential ace in the hole.

  Or from another viewpoint, as Rafe had said so succinctly, I was expendable.

  An attractive woman led us down several flights of stairs, angling deep into the belly of the mountain. That gave me a measure of confidence, because if what we planned actually came to pass, geology was going to become my new best friend.

  Eventually we entered a cozy conference room that would seat twenty or so comfortably. Refreshments and internet connections occupied the long axis. There were a few laptops spaced along the side opposite to where we took seats after divesting all of our hardware. Again I glanced at Jef’s crotch and wondered if my guess was correct. If not, I’d have to prepare myself to be disappointed.

  Assuming we lived to have an afterwards. My cock jumped, half in anticipation, half in hope.

  My liege lord rose, Jef and I following suit. A contingent of burly werewolves entered, including Fane and Samuels, both with wary, uneasy expressions. After that, the mass of bodies turned to acknowledge the presence of a petite dark-haired woman who moved with careless grace to stand before Michel du Velours. She bowed her head courteously, then moved past us to take a place at the head of the table.

  The last one to enter was Eduardo. Though I knew it was but a glamour, he assumed a very typical Catalese look: dark-haired, swarthy, with deep expressive eyes, full lips and a goatee that had been in fashion during Queen Isabella’s reign. The demon was coarsely handsome in a compelling alpha male way.

  He ignored Pops and took a seat next to Aveline du Languedoc, my Maman, and leaned in, establishing proprietary rights over the goods. I glanced sideways at my father, admiring his control but noting the small tick in the vein traversing his temple.

  Then I had to stop thinking at all and concentrate on taking deep breaths, establishing a rhythm that would approach demon normal. Unfortunately that also meant my throat was flooded with the rank odor of kennel breath, wet fur and musk that a roomful of wolves always generated, no matter how high the turnover rate in airflow or advanced filtering.

  We’d entertained, for ten seconds, trying to pull off a hidden identity thing, given my mother hadn’t seen me in a few centuries. Although I was under no misapprehension that she’d have some residual motherly instincts for me, that option had been worth considering. As for Eduardo, he’d seen me as diminutive Father Dreu, not as the six-two clone of his lord and master.

  The fly in the ointment was Fane. If he hadn’t been there, I’d have given it a shot. As it was, I decided to take point, pushing my chair away and approaching the woman who had sheltered me in her womb, bowing respectfully, then taking her hand when she offered it, brushing my lips over velvet smooth skin. Just as if it had been yesterday. My gut nearly imploded with the longing of a boy in search of succor, for the merest hint that he mattered, that this one, most exquisitely beautiful creature would once, just once, look at him—if not with affection, then perhaps approval.

  It hadn’t happened then. It wasn’t going to happen now.

  Aveline assessed me, taking note of the changes and the similarities with my sire. As I retreated to my seat, she spoke to Michel, her voice heavily sarcastic, baiting him. “Quel malheur. Il a tu ressemble.”

  Inclining his head, Pops said, “Merci, you honor us both,” choosing to ignore the insult, the accusation that the son who resembled the father managed to diminish both.

  Rafe’s echo, kill the damn bitch, took on form and substance. Whatever vendetta she had with Michel du Velours, it stopped here, in this room, under a million metric tons of rock, and the only witnesses to total obliteration would be three demons, united by blood.

  The body count would be less than the fuck up on Level Five, reasonably more substantial that at the casino, the ratio of innocents to villains a strange measure of penance in my constant search for absolution. I no longer relied on, I didn’t mean it, I had no control over it, it was a mistake. Those justifications and excuses no longer pertained.

  When the power to excise evil came down to all or nothing, Father Drue and his demon alter ego were at serious odds over how the balance sheet tottered on the knife edge of moral implosion.

  I watched Jef watching the wolves, Samuels in particular. The wolf was nervous, sweat beaded on his brow and a forefinger tapped out a rhythm of anxiety. He had good reason to be. I glanced at Pops and saw his lips twitch just once. We were in agreement.

  The threat of the nuclear device hanging over our heads had been bogus from the get-go. Whatever had been in that small crate with the ionizing radiation warning was, to use one of my favorite movie terms, disappointing. Whatever it was, it wasn’t dirty, and even if it went big-badda-boom that wo
uldn’t be enough to have the world’s generals peeing their pants over blast radiuses and body counts in the tens of thousands.

  That whole spiel about taking out the Vampyr nest of last standing royals was similarly bogus. Maman had used it to ferret out mine Papá’s secure Romanian retreat, sending him scurrying for cover and poking at the nest of fire ants in the lower levels of Hel. That little stunt effectively got that crowd to question if this wasn’t the time to think outside the Demon Central box and look at alternative options.

  Getting rid of the Demon King was a viable bullet point only if and when a suitable successor could be found. Feudal is as feudal does. Taking out the king has never led automatically to a representative democracy without a great deal of turmoil and off with their heads. The reason Pops had lasted as long as he had was that the other forty percent hadn’t been able to get their heads out of their asses long enough to figure it out.

  Until moi.

  As the stars re-aligned while they computed percentages, Mommy Dearest had determined that karma could be a bitch in her service for once, manufacturing a binding, no-escape-clause for eliminating her irritating spouse and putting the fruit of her lovely loins on his throne. Other dance steps including the offer Pops was prepared to make: he’d step down in favor of his son, with Eduardo as regent or premier, giving the forties unrestricted access to the liege lord’s ear, in exchange for the nuke and some concessions Pops hadn’t fleshed out but my guess would be they’d stick it to the little woman in ways that would hurt.

  Win-win all the way.

  The sad thing was, I doubted she gave a flying fig what went on down below. The beeyotch had a hard-on for the demon sitting next to me and the odds of ever knowing the psychoses behind that dysfunction were zero to none.

  The thirteen year old Vampyr would have gladly killed for a hug, a goodnight kiss, a well done. The nine hundred year old demon felt nothing for Evaline du Languedoc, but he did feel compassion for the man who had given him his seed, his genetic heritage and the one thing that mattered: love and a family.